ENGLISH HAS RAPED ME

Language is my mother

and Persian is my home

but English is the other,

the second language, a force

that imposed intercourse,

an intruder on the tongue

that would not let me be.

It said power, it said victim.

It said him.

English has raped me.

(d'après "English Has Raped Me",
de Fereshteh Molavi
in Speaking in Tongues: PEN Canada
Writers in Exile, ed. Maggie Helwig
introduction de John Ralston Saul
(Banf, Alberta: Banff Centre Press, 2005).

© Tous droits réservés

"In the 20 years I remained in a place that was my language's home, I felt confident that my instinct was right. Regardless of the sufferings imposed on me in a land ruled by Islamic fundamentalists, and all my inner despair, remaining there let me plunge and immerse myself in the ocean of a language that was my first language &endash; not by my choice though, given a choice, it would be my ideal language. Through the years of internal exile in my disaster-stricken home, Persian language (Farsi) was language was not only the light of my home, but my light and my home.

"English has raped me! This statement is a confession rather than a complaint to the police. This is why it is so hard to say. Rape may be the crime about which victims are most reluctant to complain. Since its victims are mainly women, the fearful reluctance may derive from the prohibitions of patriarchal ethics. In a traditional society, within the domain of religious power, the extent of concealing sins, as well as the willingness to observe taboos, is greater than it is in an open society. Regardless of what a society may impose on an individual and what it expects of him or her, the very fact of physical conjunction between the criminal and the victim makes revelation difficult. While spiritual invasion is imposed on the victim, rape as sexual torture intrudes. The victim becomes implicated in a sin that has been initiated by another but committed inside herself. This makes the victim feel that she is somehow an accomplice. Faust's covert/overt and voluntary/involuntary compromise with Satan comes to mind. Yet, before measuring what part rapist and victim each contribute to linguistic rape, we'd better understand the way it happens.

"After leaving my fatherland, the home of my mother tongue, I might have arrived in a country where English wasn't spoken, but I didn't know what such a language would do with me or what I would do with it. Besides general features as a medium of communication, any language has a specific context and distinguishing characteristics. In the case of English, two factors had a significant role in what has happened to me. First, English is a language that many people consider to be global, and certainly it has a global position. Regardless of contradictions of the idea of "World English", or whether English speakers have the right to spread it all over the world, English is certainly the dominant language in science and technology, as well as commerce and communication. Moreover, English has constantly spread its influence over the world of the arts and literature. This position endows it with a power and ease of movement greater than what it might ordinarily deserve. Second, English has been my first foreign language. It goes without saying that a foreign language is not the mother tongue learned in a mother environment and, outside its natural milieu, it is powerless to impose itself, or to supplant the native language. For me, English lacked supernatural power. It appeared to me as my first foreign language when I was in grade 7, and was a window on the infinite perspective of world literature and science. Though I started learning it mainly at the British Council, I never found it an invader or intruder. As a "foreign language", it was a tool for accessing to the most valuable human legacy, arts and science, as well as for communicating with other cultures. Thus, it was more than useful &endash; so pleasant, so magnificent, in its right place, and without interfering with my immersion in my native language.

"But English also appears in another mode, as "English as a Second Language." This term, taken from comparing it with the "first language" &endash; another name for mother tongue, but disregarding its emotional aspects and just reflecting the language's rank &endash; indicates a survival language for immigrants living in an English-speaking country, a guarantee of their social-cultural presence in the new society. It is the most basic tool of communication with the host society and the only permit to be accepted by it. Whereas "English as a Foreign Language" stops at the point of knowing and understanding the culture of people whose native language is English, the basic function of ESL is to let the learner enter this culture in order to acculturate or assimilate with it. The deterministic force and covert compulsion of ESL deriving from its ability to guarantee survival, give it an aggressive and dominating manner of which EFL is free. The difference between EFL and ESL results from their different roles: While EFL looks for friendship and companionship, ESL imposes force.

"Clearly, the "English" that has raped me is my subject, not the other English, whose company has always been delightful. In my view, the only relationship that the position and function of ESL demands is forced intercourse. But why and how do I see this intercourse as forced? It may be said that the involuntary emigration is the factor that makes the relationship with the second language undesired and coerced. Yet its force is indirect, and it is the immigrant who, for whatever reasons or expectations, approaches it and puts herself to its grasp. So the involvement is somewhat mutual, though the strength and intensity of one partner eclipse the other's role. When I state, "English has raped me," I do not mean to conceal my surrender and passivity or, for that matter, my actions."